He was called "one of the most influential promoters of eugenic thought" and a "gifted showman," which made him a popular lecturer.

[2] Wiggam earned two degrees at Hanover College: a Bachelor of Science in 1893 and a Master of Arts in 1903.

[2][3] After college, Wiggam worked as a newspaper reporter, writing for the Minneapolis Journal, and as an assayer at a mine.

[3] As of 1939, Wiggam and Elizabeth were living in New York while spending the summer at their second home in Vernon, Indiana.

[1] Wiggam also supported "permanent race improvement" and believed that Americans of Nordic heritage were superior to others.

He believes that Black people could not perform "higher integrative processes of the nervous system.